


watch your mouth

by leedeeloo



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Gen, Smoking, heart to heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 13:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14333640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leedeeloo/pseuds/leedeeloo
Summary: Meouch catches Sung smoking, and he figures there's a little more to it than a craving.





	watch your mouth

He sat up suddenly. Stood, actually, all the way up. One hand behind his back, the other at his face, rubbing his stubble, scratching.

“Commander! Hey, hi, you’re- what’s up, did you need me?”

“You’re smoking,” Meouch said simply, coming down the last few steps into the basement. Whatever he wanted to ask, burned out of his mind.

“What? No- no, I’m not. I don’t smoke, Commander, you know that-”

“It’s in your hand. Behind your back, dude, I can see the smoke.” He pointed, finger following a waving trail up into the air.

Sung grimaced, and there was a genuine flash of anger across his face for a split second. He brought his hidden cigarette to his mouth, took a bitter drag. Brow furrowed, pouting.

“Dude,” Meouch started, incredulous laugh in his throat. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Sung said quickly, almost snapping, “I’m great. That’s why I’m hiding in the basement, sneaking a smoke.” He plopped back down in his chair, legs spread, arm hanging at his side as he took a long drag, staring Meouch down. He huffed out a breath, smoke billowing around him. “So? What did you want?”

“I was gonna ask if you’d seen my smokes, but…” He sauntered over to where Sung was, picking the pack off the work bench. The ashtray wasn’t Meouch’s; he used an old coffee can, circles of rust stains on the patio. It wasn't even an ashtray Sung was using, but an empty beer can, in a cluster with a few others. Sung grabbed one that was separated from the others, and took a swig, still staring at Meouch.

His eye was red, irritated. Meouch thought he'd been at this for a while, filling the room with smoke, but he couldn’t smell it if he had been.

“I took them,” Sung admitted, and the tightness of his voice made Meouch realize that he’d been crying. “Mystery solved. You can take ‘em back and go upstairs, and-” he waved his hand, looked at the wall, away, anywhere but Meouch now. “-just, get outta here. I’m fine, you got your sh- your smokes, that’s all you wanted.”

And it was. And it would be so easy, to take what Sung said and listen to that, and just go, and go back to his own concerns. To listen to the order, and not pry.

So he reached out, plucked the nearly done cigarette from Sung’s hand, and dropped it in one of the beer cans, heard it fizzle out into a small puddle.

“That shit’s bad for you, man.”

“C’mon.”

Meouch hopped up on the workbench, empty cans clattering out of the way. He reached for the half full one Sung was holding, who pulled his hand away. “You c’mon,” he retorted wittily.

“I’m fine man, really, so just-”

“Bullshit.” Meouch cut him off. He sat up straighter as Sung slumped. “You’re not gonna sit here, and smoke my smokes, and drink shitty beer, and mope and cry. You’re gonna tell me what’s got you like this.” His hand twitched towards his pack, but he tightened his fingers into a fist. It would be against his whole point if he lit up now.

Sung huffed and pouted and refused to look at Meouch. He took too long sips of his beer until there was no way there was any left in the can, and he took one last sip before handing the thoroughly emptied can to Meouch, to add to the pile.

“I’m fighting with my brother,” he finally admitted. “He’s so-- Like, he wants to do all this shit- this stuff, go all these places, and all I’m saying is, like, maybe he should wait on it all. At least. Before just going and fu-” He pressed his lips together, an exaggerated frown, his control over himself slipping.

“He’s always been like that.” Meouch was being completely reasonable, and it just made Sung sneer. “There’s more than that, yeah? What is it, is it somewhere specific he wants to go?”

Sung stayed quiet, as if not answering would make the question go away.

“C’mon,” Meouch urged, “you’re not the type to get mad at someone for being kinda impulsive.”

That got Sung to huff out half a laugh. A tiny admission of Meouch being right. Still, he took his time to answer. He sat up straight, rolled his shoulders, stared at the ground.

“He wants to go home. To where we were raised. And I keep telling him, it’s too dangerous. You can’t breathe the air there, the, the rain is toxic. You can’t bring anything off of there anymore, you can’t stay there.”

Meouch nodded. “What’s he wanna go there for then?”

“He thinks there might be something there. Mementos. Photos, I guess.” Sung looked up, shaking his head. “He thinks he’s gonna find something, miracuously untouched by acid, the poision in the fuckin’ air left some of our family photos alone, and he’s gonna find that. He’s gonna find that, and bring it back with him without it eating a hole through his ship, burning his goddamn hands off.” Sung scoffed, getting worked up over it, running through every conversation he’d had on the matter. “Says I don’t know for sure it’s like that there. That I haven’t been since-” He cut himself off, blinking fast, bringing a hand up to his eye, rubbing. “Whatever. It’s stupid.”

“Dude, it’s not.” Meouch tried not to sound overly empathetic, tried to find the right balance in his tone. “You don’t want him to go cause he’ll get hurt, yeah?”

“Pretty much,” Sung said as he let out a held in breath. “I don’t- Like, I got everything I could from there, he knows that.” He shook his head, ground his teeth together on one side of his jaw. “It pisses me off that he’s gonna risk himself like that because, what, he thinks I missed something?” He sighed, leaned back in his chair, started tapping his foot at a rapid pace. “...It’s just insulting, I guess. As if he thinks I don’t know what’s important.”

They both went quiet, but not a good quiet. There was still a tension, Meouch could hear Sung trying to silently clear his throat. Sung’s bad mood was bouncing off the walls, making Meouch feel this bitter frustration at a brother he didn’t even have.

“And that’s it, huh?” Meouch asked. He wasn’t going to push, but he knew Sung wouldn’t be able to hold back by now, on a roll now.

“You’re not gonna let up, are you,” Sung mumbled, smiling in spite of himself. He looked at his hands in his lap, picked at his nails, skin, bit his lips. He kept quiet for a good long while.

“I’m glad I still have him, you know? I still have some family left, that’s more than- I don’t feel like I should complain about him, not around you guys.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, still picking at his hands. “What if something happens while he’s there,” Sung said flatly, “what if he goes and doesn’t come back.”

Meouch’s feet tapped against the concrete floor as he stood. Sung didn’t notice, his shoulders rising up in a jerky sob that he tried to reign in. Meouch grabbed his head, pulling it against his gut. The surprise made Sung freeze before he turned his shoulders towards Meouch, arms hanging down limp. Meouch ruffled his hair, claws moving along his scalp in circles. He nestled his face against Meouch, and Meouch let him get it out however he needed to.

He very politely didn’t say anything about the snot and tear stains on his shirt once Sung finally pulled away. He kept his hand on Sung’s head, and he didn’t pull away. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“...Should tell him that, huh?” he asked, glancing up at Meouch, nervous smile (but finally a smile) on his face.

“I think that would help, yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> god please let me know if theres some grievous typo in this


End file.
